AN'S

BY R O B E R T I. C . FISHER
ERS

Right:

ca. 1908, ca. 1923, ink and

watercolor, 13 x 7%. watercolor, 10^8x8%.
Private collection. Courtesy ttie Salomon R.
Guggenheim Museum,
New York, New York.

^^^^mm^e'w artists have stamped themselves on the 2üth-century imagination as strikingly as Piet Mondrian. Every-
\ g thing from linoleum floors to bedsheets has been influenced by the right-angled and primary-colored designs
' ^ of the Dutch Master For art historians, he is the abstractionist par excellence, the creator of such monuments of
^-—^^ nonrepresentational painting as Broadway Boogie Woogie, In the mythology of Modernism, he is one of the lead-
ing heroes: the first artist to go beyond Cubism to walk the straight-and-narrow plank to pure abstraction. In 1930, he created
a painting of two black lines of unequal widths on a white ground—and modern culture was never the same.
It was a revelation, therefore, when a recent book and traveling exhibition explored a hidden, overlooked side to Mondri-
an's art. Between 1900 and 1926, the artist had sketched or painted almost one hundred exquisitely delicate studies of flow-
ers. As David Shapiro writes in the new monograph, Mondrian: Flowers (Abrams, $35), these works have long been "an open
secret." They had on occasion been displayed in Mondrian's studio, but only in the farthest corner. Why the secrecy? Because
they broke with Mondrian's intractable abstract vision? Or, more provocatively, because they showed him "letting go,"
painting from the heart, and revealing his inner soul?
This past spring, the book and show (organized by Carroll Jards and shown at the Sidney Janis Gallery in New York City
and at the Modem Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas) gathered for the first time many of Mondrian's blossoms, creating an
evanescently beautiful bouquet. The full extent to which Mondrian had cultivated his "garden" was revealed. Here, we pre-
sent the pick of the bunch.

88 WATERCOLOR'91
Phntn iñ Thp c;iilnmon R GHOqenhpim Fnundatinn

WATERCOLOR '91 89
 ^ ^ • ^ n art history books, Mondrian usually only comes into existence as one of the founders of the de Stijl style and
( g ^ painter at the forefront of the Neo-Plasticism School. But if this contribution was the main feature, the cur-
M tain-raiser had been a 20-year career spent working in realist styles. As a teenager, Mondrian had received a
V_-<^ degree in academic drawing, and started out as a naturalistic painter under the influence of the Hague School
of Impressionism. He began to do scientific illustrations for research institutions, and in his own floral studies, we see traces
of his background in botanical illustration.
As if labeled and catalogued in a glass case, each blossom stands isolated on the page. There is no "environment" of grass-
es and butterflies for the flower; instead, Mondrian paints his blossoms as if they were in solitary conflnement. More than
one critic has commented on the "withdrawn" character of these flowers. Often in the process of wilting, the flowers seem to
be suffering, and Mondrian may have used cut flowers only to explore the pathos of dying. Each blossom seems to be a psy-
chological portrait (some critics say self-portrait), and it is not surprising that Mondrian was highly influenced by the expres-
sive power of Vincent van Gogh's floral works. "1, too, find flowers splendid in their exterior beauty," Mondrian said. "But
there is hidden within a deeper beauty."

Right:

J?oses
1909, watercolor, 18'/2 x Wh.
ca. 1922-1926, Private collection.
watercolor, lO'/èx Vh.
Courtesy Fine Art
Communications, Inc.,
New York, New York.

y/' \ ften rendered in mood-provoking color combinations, Mondrian's floral works orchestrate a masterful control of
/ I tonality with a stunning use of near-complementary colors. Especially in his paintings of chrysanthemums, shad-
I M owy violets are balanced with pockets of aquamarine, and indigo blues are emphasized with twilight lilacs. It is
v_^^ interesting to note that Mondrian had already used moonlight to attain disintegrating and planar effects in his oil
painting. The fact that blue is a color never seen in an actual chrysanthemum bloom implies that Mondrian used the hue for
its emotional tenor, much as Picasso did in his Blue Period paintings. Mondrian always wished to go beyond the mere exter-
nals of nature. After all, he was a painter proud of the fact that he loathed the color green.
Scholars have revealed that only four of the works in the traveling exhibition date from the years 1900 to 1910. The
remaining works were created in the 1920s (not some ten or 20 years earlier, as Mondrian had indicated)—during the very
years when the artist was pioneering new frontiers in geometric abstraction. "Are we then to conclude that these flower pic-
tures of the 1920s constitute some kind of skeleton in Mondrian's closet?" writes the distinguished art critic Hilton Kramer,
in a review of the exhibition that appeared in the New York Observer. "That his pronounced belief in the superiority of abstract
art was in some sense fraudulent because he was secretly producing—and predating—these very delicate and charming
flower images even as he was moving the art of painting away from all trace of realistic representation?"

90 WATERCOLOR '91
WATERCOLOR '91 91
 ^ ^ ^ ^ t is easier to contrast than to characterize the two styles of Mondrian, but are they, in the end, so different? As
{ M any watercolorist knows, flowers are the perfect forms within which to practice formal arrangements in color
M juxtaposition, saturation, and proportion. As such, these floral studies contained the seeds, if not the fruit, of
V_-<^ Mondrian's abstract works.
It's hard to believe these watercolors were done by a painter who had reduced his oil palette to the unmixed primaries of
yellow, blue, and red and the achromatic pigments of white, black, and gray. Here, in his tiger lily watercolors, Mondrian's
brush literally skims the surface, using the transparency of the washiest of watercolors to prevent the flowers from appearing
flat. Now, the analytical accuracy of the pen has been dropped for the darker-hued accents in watercolor, inspired by the
style of the German-Expressionist Emil Nolde. Disdaining flowers an naturel, Mondrian bought most of the blossoms—
amaryllis, dahlia, chrysanthemum, passion flower, and tiger lily—from a florist. He never painted that symbol of Holland,
the tulip.

Right:

ca. 1908, ca. 1908,

graphite and graphite and
watercolor, lO'/ixó'/e. watercolor, 9'A x 8.
Private collection. Private collection.

^^^^•m^ oday, critics call Mondrian's floral paintings masterpieces. This term is contrary to their truest purpose, how-
\ m ever, for they were meant to be intensely private and unpretentious works. Perhaps this is why Mondrian
m came to repudiate them, stating publicly they were done only to earn money when he couldn't sell his
'^—^ abstractions. He wanted to keep them hidden, for they were extremely personal, modest images—a true
reflection of his own personality, one that had been formed by a strict Calvinist upbringing. When, in a 1942 article on flow-
er painting for The Studio magazine, art critic Cedric Morris wrote that "only a modest man can paint a flower," Mondrian's
floral works were still largely unknown. Now, confronted with the actual scope of his painted garden, we see that Morris's
observation rings true. •

92 WATERCOLOR '91
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WATERCOLOR '91 93
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